American mathematician
Richard Alfred Tapia (born March 25, 1938) is an American mathematician and University Professor at
Rice University in
Houston, Texas , the university's highest academic title.
[1]
[2] In 2011,
President Obama awarded Tapia the
National Medal of Science .
[3] He is currently the Maxfield and Oshman Professor of Engineering; Associate Director of Graduate Studies, Office of Research and Graduate Studies; and Director of the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice University.
[4]
Tapia's mathematical research is focused on
mathematical optimization and
iterative methods for
nonlinear problems. His current research is in the area of
algorithms for
constrained optimization and
interior point methods for
linear and nonlinear programming.
Biography
Tapia was born in
Santa Monica, California to parents, Amado and Magda, who both emigrated to the United States from Mexico.
[5] His father worked for Japanese American
horticulturists in southern California.
[6]
He married Jean Tapia,
[7] a Newyorrican (daughter of Puerto Rican who grew up in New York) and had 2 children: Circee and Richard
[8]
Education
He received his B.A. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1961.
He then earned his M.A. in mathematics, also from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1966.
He received his Ph.D. from
University of California, Los Angeles , 1967 in mathematics with the dissertation: "A Generalization of
Newton's Method with an Application to the
Euler–Lagrange Equation "
[9] under the advisors:
Magnus Hestenes , Charles Tompkins
[10]
Tapia also holds honorary doctorates from
Carnegie Mellon University and the
Colorado School of Mines .
[11]
Career
In 2004, he received the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession, in Portland, and
Distinguished Public Service Award ,
American Mathematical Society , in Phoenix.
[12]
In 2009, he received
Hispanic Heritage Award in Math and Science and he was chosen to have a "Celebration of Diversity in Computing" [conference]
[13] named after him (usually held annually or biennially
[14] ).
[15]
In 2014, the
Blackwell-Tapia prize and conference were named for Tapia and
David Blackwell .
In 2021, he received the award Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
[16]
See also
References
^
"Award #0634516 — Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow" .
National Science Foundation . March 1, 2007. Retrieved 2009-06-06 . Tapia is the
Principal investigator on a $2 million NSF grant (2007-2010) addressing networking for a "minority student or faculty at a majority institution".
^
"Tapia promoted to University Professor: Hispanic pioneer earns university's top academic title" (Press release). Rice University. October 14, 2005.
^
"Twelve Researchers Take Home Top Medals" . Science Insider. September 28, 2011. Archived from
the original on October 1, 2011. Retrieved September 28, 2011 .
^
"Richard A. Tapia — Brief Bio" . Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Rice University.
^
"Richard Tapia - Biography" . Maths History . Retrieved 5 March 2022 .
^
Hispanic Engineer & IT . Career Communications Group. 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2022 .
^
Jean Tapia's 60th Birthday Celebration . 2001. Retrieved 12 September 2023 .
^
Loosing the Precious Few . ARTE PUBLICO Press. 2022.
ISBN
9781558859425 . Retrieved 12 September 2023 .
^
Megginson, Robert E. (December 8, 2002).
"Arlie Petters Is First Recipient of Blackwell-Tapia Prize" . SIAM News . Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Retrieved November 15, 2008 .
^
"Richard Tapia" . Mathematics Genealogy Project . Retrieved November 15, 2008 .
^ Newton, David E. (14 May 2014).
Latinos in Science, Math, and Professions . Infobase Publishing.
ISBN
978-1-4381-0786-8 .
^
"Societies: The SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service" . The MacTutor History of Mathematics . University of St. Andrews.
^ See the older [2009] version of <<
"Archives of Previous Tapia Celebration Websites" . Archived from
the original on March 27, 2009. Retrieved July 12, 2009 . >> ... (which might contain some info that is more complete than [or otherwise different from] newer versions of the ["archive" listing of] <<
"Previous Tapia Conferences" .
Archived from the original on October 8, 2018. Retrieved June 12, 2019 . >> on the "
ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing " web site.)
^ See also
http://tapiaconference.org/ ... which is the home page of the current (next or most recent)
"
ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing " web site.
^
"22nd Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards to Honor Latino Leaders During Star-Studded Ceremony on Capitol Hill" (PDF) . Hispanic Heritage Awards. Archived from
the original (PDF) on 19 December 2010. Retrieved 11 January 2011 .
^
2021 Class of Fellows of the AMS , American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2020-11-02
Thompson, James R.; Tapia, Richard A. (1990). Nonparametric function estimation, modeling, and simulation . Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
ISBN
0898712610 .
"
Tapia Video Biography ", The Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University.
Barron, Rachel (Fall 1999).
"Hitting the Highway with Mathematician Dr. Richard Tapia" . Sacnas News . 3 (3).
Smallwood, Scott (March 28, 2003).
"A Race That's About More Than Speed: Richard Tapia, dragster mathematician, seeks to fuel minority scientists and engineers" . The Chronicle of Higher Education . 49 (29). Archived from
the original on December 2, 2005.
"
Tapia promoted to University Professor ", Rice University News Release.
Richard A. Tapia at the
Mathematics Genealogy Project
International National Academics Other